Call him a forgotten warrior. He never killed a man. Never shed any of his blood.

Nobody ever called him a hero.

But at 85, when his grandchildren ask him if he was ever in a war, he can nod with candor. John Keane did his bit.

If they press, he can tell them war is not exclusive to seething oceans and blood-drenched soil. He can tell them the most entrenched warfare roils in your soul. He has tramped through those nettles, too. They leave you bitter. Or they leave you better. You pick.

In the spring of 1944, just after he turned 16, Keane, then living in Waterbury, went to sea. The Navy wouldn't take him; men had to be 17 to enlist. So Keane went with the United States Merchant Marine, the "fourth arm of defense," which delivered troops and supplies for the military during World War II.

Well, it was the spirit of the age. Boys itched to go. Even boys like Keane, who grew up on Long Island in a clapboard home that seemed to lean into the adjacent railroad tracks like willow. From his window at night, Keane could see a bar, a vegetable stand and the glint of an iron his mother pressed into fabric at the Chinese laundry just across the tracks. By day, his mother worked in a lace factory and his older brother shined shoes outside a bar — five cents a shine. She was a young woman, his mother. By 21, she had three boys and a drunk for a husband. The husband took off in 1933. John Keane was 5.

The first ship on which Keane served was the S.S. Michael Moran, one of the 2,751 Liberty ships the U.S. built between 1941 and war's end. The feeling of being on this mass-produced cargo ship as it churned through the Atlantic toward Cherbourg, France, is one that will stay with Keane for as long as he lives. A Liberty could carry 2,840 jeeps, 440 tanks, or 230 million rounds of rifle ammunition.

"What hurts me is that it's like we were not part of the Second World War," says Keane, a trim, hazel-eyed man in window-pane shirt and pressed charcoal pants. "Without us, the war would have been much harder won. When we had all these Liberty ships going at the same time, it was amazing."

Keane sits at a round oak table in his kitchen, a bubble-gum pink tea-and-saucer set before him. The ranch-style house is spare and immaculate, its walls the color of green Necco wafers. A rack of teaspoons presides over the dining room. The kitchen and living room are separated by a window of shelves that hold small ceramic kittens and mice that sniff toadstools. A pair of wind chimes no bigger than a key chain dangle from the top shelf.

Keane clutches a stack of yellow-gray discharge papers from vessels on which he served — ships with exotic names like the African Rainbow and the Cape Ann. The paper has the look of Confederate war bonds and the soft, cottony feel of a well-circulated dollar bill.

During World War II, an estimated 8,300 merchant crewmen were killed at sea and another 12,000 were wounded. More than 660 were taken prisoners of war. In 1988, after a decades-long court battle, those who served in the U.S. Merchant Marine in the war won veteran's status.

Keane spent eight years at sea, signing up with the mariners over and over. The life suited him. The drinking suited him. And the drinking was his legacy of the sea. He kept it with him throughout the 1950s, after he married the woman he loved, a slender little pip of a thing named Teresa Galligan, down-to-earth and "full of hell," he said. "She could light up an empty room," he said.

After the couple married, Keane's estranged father phoned him, wanting to meet. They convened outside a Western Union office in Bridgeport. "He looked like the world had beat him up pretty good," Keane said. He bought his father a drink at a nearby bar. He felt nothing for the man. Nothing at all.

His wife bore him seven children while he drove a bread truck and installed storm windows. He went to work for Brock Hall Dairy for 30 years and for all of those early days ended his shift in a bar, stopping in for a pop or two and then, well, then losing track. That last night he staggered home — such a mess. His wife didn't holler. Took one look at him and drove him to the hospital, where he stayed for a month, until the poison left him.

It has been 38 years. Keane hasn't had a drop. Not that there hasn't been reason.

Two of his sons — handsome, fair-haired men whose framed photographs perch on the upright piano — were killed. He lost one in a motorcycle accident in 1980, and the other in a 2003 car wreck. Such fine boys they were, he says, stroking their photographs.

Was there some grace in the fact his wife died of cancer in 1998 before she had to endure the death of another son? He doesn't know. But his wife's death left a void in him.

He went back to church, began to sing in the choir. He is learning piano now. The sheet music for Brahms' Lullaby leans against the upright. He is beginning to use two hands now, he boasts.

Keane has a passel of medals to show for his wartime service. They are pinned in a glass case. It is an august testament to his service. And then there is the book, thin as a breviary, its pages curled and spine held together with duct tape. "Twenty-Four Hours a Day," distributed by Alcoholics Anonymous, holds daily proverbs.

"I like sayings," says Keane. When he opens the book, scraps of yellowing writing paper tumble out, maxims he has collected and transcribed on small sheets of paper, tucked throughout the years into his black book.

"Don't cry because it's over," Keane recited. "Smile because it happened." He wants his grandchildren to know a few things about his life, he said. He typed them out, single-space, on three sheets of white typing paper. "Be kinder than necessary," he typed. "For every one you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

The United States Merchant Marine is the fleet of U.S.-registered, non-military, commercial vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services internationally or on the navigable waters of the nation.

The U.S. Merchant Marine transports cargo and passengers during times of peace and war. In times of war, the Merchant Marine may also be called upon to operate as an auxiliary to the Navy, to deliver troops, equipment and supplies for the armed forces. These vessels fly the American flag, and employ U.S. Coast Guard licensed and unlicensed mariners.

Merchant mariners move cargo and passengers within the United States and around the globe. Mariners operate and maintain cargo vessels, container ships, tankers, research vessels, tugboats, towboats, ferries, dredges, excursion vessels, and other watercraft on the oceans, the Great Lakes, rivers, canals, harbors, and other waterways. Merchant mariners are also employed at sea in the offshore energy and fishing industries.

— Source: U.S. Merchant Marine Academy

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Rosana Faessler stops by the hostess stand to check on reservations, then makes her way into the dining room to chat with a couple of the regular guests. After a few minutes, she wanders to the breakfast buffet to make sure everything's clean and full, then straightens a picture before heading back out to the dining room.